hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with spring lamb pan-fried
dumplings that's right mary had a little lamb and not quite enough to make a main
course for everyone so what she did instead was make this very easy and very
delicious appetizer featuring pan fried wonton stuffed with lamb and green peas
and by the way I should have just called this video pan fried dumplings because
some people don't like lamb and they might think they can't make this but
we're about to see is really just a technique and you can stuff these with
all kinds of meat and vegetables but having said that I love lamb so I'm
gonna go ahead and start with 1 pound of ground to which we will add some finely
minced garlic as well as some finely sliced green onions or as we call them
in the spring spring onions and then for color and a little bit of heat I did
some finely diced Fresno chilies although just a regular sweet red bell
pepper would work and then besides the lamb the other traditional spring
ingredient we will add here are some green peas and not only your lamb and
peas great together but they're both absolutely fantastic with mint which is
what we're gonna use to flavor our dipping sauce later but anyway let's go
ahead and season this up with some kosher salt
as well as some freshly ground black pepper and of course a few shakes of
kaya and then a little touch of one of the greatest lamb spices of all time
some ground cumin and believe it or not that's it for this very simple spring
lamb and pea filling and at this point we'll take a couple Forks and mix this
up but before we really start working that meat over
let's mostly stick to the surface and make sure all that stuff we tossed on
top is sort of evenly distributed before we start working it in and then once we
feel like that's happened we can be more aggressive and give this a thorough but
relatively gentle mix and if you're wondering why the forks and not just
mash this all together with our hands well first of all because I have to move
a camera around but also I think there's less chance of overworking the meat if
we do it this way ok a couple of nice cold pointy Forks is always gonna result
in less mashing of the meat then if we use our big hot sweaty hands but no
matter what you use once that's mixed we can theoretically use it right away but
like every other meat stuffing and filling in history if we wrap this up in
refrigerator for a few hours those flavor means we'll have time to all meld
together and we will probably end up with a better tasting product and I say
probably because I can't prove it but probably so I did wrap mine up and chill
it for a few hours and while we wait for that to get good we can go ahead and mix
up our dipping sauce which is gonna be nothing more than some flavoured rice
vinegar seasoned rice vinegar to be exact and all we're gonna add to that is
a little bit of soy sauce plus some freshly and very finely sliced mint and
that's it will simply give that a stir and refrigerate until needed and because
the lamb has that little bit of GAE meanness to it and also tends to be
quite rich and by rich I mean there's going to be a lot of melted fat in our
dumpling this vinegar-based dippy sauce is going to be absolutely perfect and
that's it once our dip is done and all those flavorings in our meat have been
married we'll go ahead and start filling some store-bought wonton wrappers which
once we open the package we always want to keep a damp paper towel over them so
they don't dry out and I also had a little ramekin a water nearby not just
to help me seal the wonton but also because damp fingers don't stick to meat
which will make filling these a little easier and what we'll do after placing
in about 2 to 3 teaspoons of filling just go ahead and rub a little bit of
water on those front two edges so that once we fold this over and give it a
little bit of a press hopefully those edges will seal nice and tight and
that's really all there is to these all right so really nothing too complicated
and while we're pressing in ceilin we're also attempting to squeeze out any of
the air bubbles oh and I forgot to mention before we wrap all these up it's
never a bad idea to cook a little piece of the filling and check for seasoning
since pre wrapping would be the time to adjust that but anyway once that was
completed I went ahead and did 2 more since I think 3 of these is the perfect
size for an appetizer and then what we'll do once these dumplings are done
is go ahead and pan fry those and a little bit of melted butter over medium
heat for about 3 minutes per side or until our meats cooked and these are
beautifully golden brown so I gave that first side about 3 minutes and went
ahead and flipped them over and by the way if we have kids watching
or adults maybe use a spatula and tongs to flip these and not spatula and finger
because these can and will feel like burning
and at this point everything was going so well until I decided to flip these
back over to give this side a little more color and I realized these were
starting to spring open all right when you use a raw meat filling its gonna
release a lot of juices in melted fat that's gonna try to force its way out of
the dumpling and because I used water to seal these and not egg wash like I was
supposed to as you can see especially on this one I had total separation oh yeah
that dumpling was made by someone to spend two years of culinary school but
in fairness if you make the dough yourself for these wrappers then usually
a little bit of water will seal these properly but anyway as you well know we
never let the food win so once I thought these were done and that me was kind of
spring him back to the touch I went ahead and pulled these off the heat and
I served him up and then after wasting a few seconds trying to arrange them I
placed some of our vinegar dipping sauce nearby and I went in for taste which
despite my separation issues really was incredibly flavorful and delicious
and while the combination of our simple lamb and pea filling with our
mint-infused vinegar really was tremendous I was not trying to make
spring lamb pan-fried tacos okay I wanted dumplings or a good old fashioned
fully sealed dumplings so I decided to make some more
this time using some egg wash like I should have done in the first place and
then once we painted the edges with that we'll go ahead and place in some filling
this time using a couple spoons since you don't want to be dipping your
fingers in the egg Plus as you can see the spoons work really well and that's
it we'll just go ahead and fold this the same way we did the first batch except
when you use an egg wash as it dries it gets extremely sticky which is why it
makes such a perfect edible blue although one tip here we do want to let
these rest for a little bit so our egg glue has time to set okay it
doesn't have to be too long maybe 10 or 15 minutes and yes of course you can
make these ahead and keep them in the fridge and that's it once I have three
done with the egg wash I went back to the stove and cooked them in the exact
same way and again to defend myself a little bit with the first batch if you
make your own fresh wonton dough just a little bit of water on the edge will
generally seal them sufficiently but as you saw with these store-bought ones
that was not the case here but anyway I feel like one of my jobs
here is to make these kind of mistakes so you don't have to
and once you've cooked long enough and make enough mistakes it barely even
bothers you anymore so I went ahead and brown those up on
both sides and I went ahead and serve those up once again with our dipping
sauce and not only did these look better but they actually tasted better because
none of our lamb juices and flavorful melted fat leaked out which reminds me
if you don't absolutely love lamb do these with another meat all right
because of the way these are constructed all that lamb fat is going to be trapped
inside these which is where almost all the richness and a lot of that subtle
gaming this flavor comes from so this technique is really great if you love
lamb but if you don't instead of lamb in peas you could go
with ground beef and sauteed mushrooms or maybe ground chicken and green
chilies for Italian sausage and caramelized onions okay so please
remember this is just a technique and you can make these with whatever you
want I mean you are after all the Tennessee
Williams of your pan dumpling fillings when speaking to playwright to play
these right if you do change the filling you may want to change your dipping
sauce okay mint is absolutely perfect with
lamb and peas but maybe not so much with beef and mushrooms but no matter what
you decide to stuff into these easy to make pan-fried dumplings I really do
hope you give these a try soon so please follow the links below for the
ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and
as always enjoy
you